The present invention relates generally to protective corners and, more particularly, to protective corners to adhere to a corner of a book, poster, prospectus, folder, posted notice, or any document or thing prone to wear and tear or mutilation through normal use.
Books and paper documents, and virtually countless other paper and other products, have corners which can become worn, mutilated, unraveled, torn or otherwise destroyed through normal use. Similarly, tacking, taping and other mounting methods can damage the corners of documents. Such untimely destruction can unnecessarily shorten the useful life of the document, book, etc. Unfortunately, no known device existed prior to the present invention which provided an inexpensive, easily mountable, non-yellowing protection device which provides continuing protection to corners. Often, paperback books and novels, or other documents which are read and used repeatedly over long periods of time, had to be replaced or simply discarded. The present invention provides an inexpensive, convenient device which protects and/or repairs the corners of a book or document, for example, to greatly increase the useable life of the book or document. The present invention further provides methods for inexpensively and efficiently mass-producing the corner protectors.
The only known devices which utilize a structure and an adhesive capable of bonding to a corner are (1) Mounting Corners manufactured by Light Impressions of Rochester, N.Y., shown graphically at FIG. 19a, and (2) Vinyl Corners made by Pioneer Photo Albums, Inc., of Chatsworth, Calif., shown graphically at FIG. 19b. Neither of these products teaches the inventions described herein. The Light Impressions product consists of a strip of plastic material with adhesive on the outer edges thereof. The Light Impressions product does not form a discreet corner pocket as does each embodiment of Applicant's invention. The Pioneer Photo product appears to be a vinyl product with a performed corner, but with adhesive on a backside thereof. It is intended to mount pictures. It cannot protect a corner because of the way the adhesive is preformed and because they are no flaps or other means to allow it to adhere properly to a corner.